


Listy Takes Charge

by cephalopod_groupie



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Caring, Kissing, M/M, Romance, sad Rimmer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 21:04:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9786965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cephalopod_groupie/pseuds/cephalopod_groupie
Summary: Rimmer retreats to an empty room expecting no one will come after him. He's wrong. Which he hates.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Starbug1988](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starbug1988/gifts).



Arnold Rimmer was sitting at a table pretending to revise his astro navs for the umpteenth time, when what he was really doing was being sad. Genuinely sad, unable to put on a front to Lister, pretend like he wasn’t depressed. Some days he couldn’t even lie to himself. Today was one of those days. He twiddled one of his pens, intended for color coding his complex note taking method, between his fingers. He didn’t have the heart to yell at Kryten or annoy Lister or tease Cat. He wondered what the others were doing and pretended to be angry with them, but he wasn’t really surprised that they hadn’t bothered to find him. He felt like crying but his father’s voice rang through his head “PATHETIC BOY!” 

Rimmer heard a gentle knock outside the open doorway.

“Hey,” Lister said softly.

“Ah, Lister,” Rimmer said in the most pompous voice he could muster, “Done slobbing for the day, are we?”

“No, just taking a break,” Lister kidded. He wasn’t really offended by Rimmer’s feeble attempts to shame him. 

“Oh? What do you want? Come on, Lister, you can see I’m busy!”

“Then why is most of your page blank?” Lister said, pointing to the desk. The one thing that he hated about Lister, apart from of his slobbing and his lack of ambition, was how he could positively nail every single time he was lying. Every. Single. Time. 

“I don’t know,” Rimmer said, in the voice he almost never used. It was truthful in the sense that he wasn’t lying, he wasn’t being mean, he wasn’t pretending he was ok. He threw his pen down.

“You ok?” Lister said in his lilting Liverpudlian voice, the voice he secretly loved. The upward tilt of the last syllable of his sentences that he mentally professed hadn’t ever made the front of his trousers tight. 

“No.” They both breathed in and out a few times. Rimmer closed and opened his eyes. 

“I thought you were happy about being hard light?”

“Didn’t last as long as I thought it would.”

“I’m sorry.” 

“Are you?”Rimmer tried to sound bitter but it failed, like everything else he tried to do. He suddenly noticed Lister was standing right beside him, right behind his shoulder. 

“Yes.” It was very silent in the room, only the white noise of the ship in their ears. Lister leaned on the desk, on Rimmer’s left side. Rimmer tried not to notice and wondered what the man was going to say. The ‘yes’ hung in the air and Rimmer felt the digital projection of his heart thumping hard. Lister leaned in wth agonizing slowness. He touched his lipsto Rimmer’s. The hologram closed his eyes. Lister was pressing his slightly parted lips to his own hard light particles as if he were made of flesh and blood. Their lips clung together and Rimmer could feel Lister breathe in. Electricity, magnetism...there was no revision for this kind of thing. Rimmer didn’t do anything but allow himself to be kissed. His lips were parted, facilitating Lister’s soft, incremental movements. Rimmer could not lie. Lister felt wonderful. The man pulled away.

“Why don’t you come and join us,” Lister said, his eyes suggestive and kind. He walked out. Rimmer didn’t need to breathe but his chest rose and fell. He was in a heavy trance. 

“Oh-kay.” His voice echoed in the room. Then he left too. He was almost mad that he couldn’t be mad anymore. Almost.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not a hardcore Rimmer/Lister fan but I wanted to write something romantic for them.


End file.
